Considering the taciturn nature of the lone shepherds here, Alberich was inclined to agree. The Sunpriests hated them, for they could not be controlled as easily as villagers. They thought their own long thoughts alone out here, for moons at a time, and could not be compelled to come for the regular temple services. You could not leave sheep to tend themselves while you hiked to the nearest village for SunDescending, SunRising, Solstice and Equinox, after all, and sheep tended to run astray when they felt like doing so, not on any schedule. If there was to be wool for the wheel and the loom, and mutton and lamb for the table, the shepherds had to be left to their own ways and thoughts. The priests were not amused, but they could do nothing about it.

On a rock beside the mouth of the spring, he left the thank-token for whoever actually owned the resource. It might even be that shepherd—but whoever laid claim to the water rights would find the proper toll for the use of his water. Alberich had packed several such needful things in Kantor’s saddlebags before they’d left. In this case, it was something virtually every hillman would find useful, the more especially since the confiscation of so many weapons by the Sunpriests; a Tedrel crossbow and a quiver of quarrels for it, all wrapped in oiled canvas to keep them safe. There was nothing about any of the tokens Alberich had brought that said “Valdemar” and nothing—such as, for instance, a bit of gold—that would be difficult for a poor hill-man to explain.

These were, after all, his people still. He would have a care to what happened to them when he was gone again.

And on they went, taking to the pounded track once again, as the sun sank on their right and the light edged into gold, and golden-orange and the shadows of the hills grew long and stretched across their path.

That was when he sent Laika and a younger Herald out on a long scout ahead. If Laika was right, they should be getting near to the camp. And he began the usual futile attempt to probe at the near-future, like a man probing at an old wound to see if it still hurt. As usual, his Gift was silent.

Which was, in a way, a good thing, since it wasn’t warning him about anything.

The sun was dropping nearer the horizon now, and the sky to the left had turned a deeper blue, while the sky to the right, with long banks of cloud across the path of the sun, was turning red. It would be sunset soon, and they still hadn’t found that camp. He was beginning to be concerned. They would have to decide very shortly whether to go on under the full moon, able to see all right, but risking ambush, or make camp themselves—